ENGLEWOOD, Colo. —When the Broncos begin training camp on Thursday, both wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders and tight end Jake Butt expect to be eased into practice.
Sanders, who is recovering from an Achilles injury that he suffered in early December, said his goal is "to be ready for Week 1, when it all starts to count."
"We're going to take our time," Sanders said Tuesday. "I don't even know if I'm going to do the conditioning test tomorrow. As far as practice, I'm definitely not going to be going full-go from the jump. Eventually we're going to just increase the workload day by day until the trainers feel like I'm ready to go full speed."
Butt, meanwhile, may take a few more snaps after spending much of the offseason doing individual drills as he recovered from a torn ACL.
"I think going into camp I'm going to be doing more team things: 7-on-7 and team drills," Butt said. "And they'll slowly work my reps back up to where they were."
Sanders did not take part in individual drills during the offseason.
Butt said he expects to avoid a physically unable to perform designation, which would preclude him from participating in any part of the Broncos' practice.
"I'll be active," Butt said. "I'm pretty, pretty sure. That's what we've been talking about. I feel good. I can basically do everything in my mind. So I should be out there with the team."
While the two players may not be full participants at the start of camp, Sanders said he's still eager to preview what type of team the Broncos could be this season.
"Obviously I'm excited to see what type of team we've got," Sanders said. "We've got a new coaching staff, we've got a new quarterback, we've got a new defense, we've got great players and we've got people like NFL Network and ESPN [that are] already writing us off saying we're going to go 2-14 and [have] the 31st-ranked offense.
"I'm listening to all that, and I'm looking forward to going out and building the team and proving everybody wrong but also proving ourselves to be right in terms of knowing who we are."
